Online Marketing Blog

SEMPO Institute released their online training program for SEO and PPC late 2007. TopRank has previously written a review of the “Fundamentals Course” now known as the “Insider’s Guide to Search Marketing”. SEMPO Institute students that complete the Insider’s Guide can then move on to the two advanced training courses, one of which is the Advanced SEO Specialist course. I’ve recently completed that training and have the following review:

The Advanced SEO Course builds on the basics covered in the Insider’s Guide to Search Marketing, and then expands into research and execution of many SEO tactics including: keyword research, web page construction, link building tactics and writing appropriate website copy.

As mentioned in a previous post, universal search is a hot topic here at SMX West.

My first session of the day: The Blended Search Revolution revealed insights from the major search engines about how they are ‘compiling’ the universal search results and how companies should take advantage of the opportunity.

Universal search leverages new content such as news results, images and videos.

Specifically, David Bailey from Google shared these five tips (some obvious, some maybe not) to take advantage of the specialized results:

SMX West, in Santa Clara, kicked off today with a keynote from Danny Sullivan, Editor-in-Chief of Search Engine Land.

Danny started off the conference by talking about the different generations of search, of which many of us have experienced, the generation we’re in now and where he thinks the industry might go next.

Here’s a quick rundown:

Search 1.0 – Keywords - All about the keywords on the page and what ended up as keyword stuffing for the large part.

Search 2.0 – Links – Search results followed the democratic process and ranked websites based on the number of links (votes) the website was receiving.

Next month I’m heading to New York to blog the SES NY conference for Online Marketing Blog where Lee is speaking on the “Beyond Linkbait: Getting Authoritative Online Mentions” panel with newly elected SEMPO board member Chris Boggs and PR veteran Sally Falkow.

I’m over-the-moon excited to attend and have stumbled upon a tiny connection between the host city and the conference.

The industry that never sleeps will be placed smack in the middle of the city that never sleeps. While I’m not sure what kind of cosmic connection to make of this (and it’s not the first time so I’m pretty sure the earth won’t start spiraling toward the sun), I am curious to see how it all goes down and to share my insights with you.

I am curious if anyone else has noticed a trend over the past year or so where people (I have nobody specific in mind) in the search marketing business seem to increasingly gravitate towards becoming a “SEO celebrity”. It’s a bit like like moths to a flame, really.

A while back, I had a search marketing job candidate answer the, “Where would you like to be in 2-3 years?” question with, “I want to be a famous SEO”. “Why?” I would ask. “Because that’s my goal”. Fair enough, but it’ll be tough to pay the bills with a wallet full of famous.

This week’s BIGLIST update of SEO and social media blogs is pretty close to being the best batch of new blogs I’ve seen since we started publishing the list a year ago. What a great collection of resources! It really makes our industry better by having more and more people blogging their ideas, insights and even letting a few “secrets” slip out now and again.  Check it out:

Trail of the Fire Horse - Another excellent Canada based search and social media marketing blog comes this time from the very smart/savvy Dave Harry aka “the Gypsy”.

Earlier this week we started a poll on what online marketing tactics our readers would use most in 2008. The polling plug-in allows for only one choice and over 100 people have responded so far. We’ll keep the poll running for another week or so, but here are the top ten tactics rankings so far out of 35 listed and the percentage of votes for each.

With the vote count at over 150, I’ve updated the top ten as of 02/13/08:

• Blogging (27%)
• Email marketing (16%)
• Search engine optimization (14%)
• Pay per click (9%)

It’s pretty hard to compete with news like Microsoft offering to buy Yahoo for $44 billion or Amazon to buy Audible for $300 million, but there’s plenty to read on those topics and more on this week’s BIGLIST SEO blogs update.

• SEO Design Solutions Blog - You don’t see too many practical tips blogs these days and that’s why it’s nice to see Jeffrey Smith blogging all manner of tips on SEO from WordPress optimization to organic vs PPC.

• Smackdown! - Michael VanDeMar is full of piss and vinegar especially when it comes to Matt Cutts. What this blog lacks in subscriber numbers it makes up for in good humor.

Sometimes a Monday blog post deserves a good collection of links:

• The Fox on viral link building and listening to your audience
• Smackdown on Matt Cutts re: spanking SEO blogs
• Jeff Jarvis @TheGuardian and the social whirl driving the development of search
• eMarketer says B2B’s are buzzing over Marketing 2.0
• Vox on Video: Measuring engagement of user generated video
• SEO Lowdown on the LED: “You’re doing the SEM industry a dis-service by characterizing the level or complexity of SEO work according to the size of a company.”

In this month’s Target Marketing Magazine, a TopRank authored article on how small businesses can gain a competitive marketing advantage by leveraging content promotion, blogs, social media and universal search was featured. Recently there has been some dialog and commentary on certain SEM channels about upcoming harder economic times calling for SEO to be taken back to the basics: “Textbook SEO” as Mike Grehan would put it. I disagree with the premise that companies should stop experimenting with new tactics and stick with the fundamentals. Effective SEO in any economic environment means getting more creative, not mundane.

The Internet Marketing Ninjas instructional program including videos and tools conceived by Jim Boykin of We Build Pages, has officially launched. I think a lot of people in the search marketing industry will be wowed by the sheer volume of quality information that’s available. Currently there are a series of 12 videos from the likes of Aaron Wall, Shoemoney, Neil Patel and Jim himself. Plus, most of the famous We Build Pages SEO and link building tools have been taken offline and included in the program along with many of the private WBP tools.

Recently I did a podcast for AllBusiness.com , recently acquired by Dun & Bradstreet, along with their Marketing Director, David Saries. The audience for AllBusiness.com is small businesses, so the questions were flavored toward the perspectives many do it yourself or hands on web site owners and online business owners have.

The podcast discusses a variety of topics ranging from a definition of SEO to common SEO mistakes. We also discuss emerging online marketing channels and whether small businesses can “do SEO in-house” or not. You can listen to the full podcast here: “The Fundamentals of Search Engine Optimization”